


voltage

by alessandriana



Category: Agent Carter (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Characters A and B take care of hurt/ill Character C whom they both love, Forced to witness torturing of the hurt character, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Near Death Experience Makes Unaffected Character Realize They Love the Victim
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-02
Updated: 2020-06-02
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:28:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24192121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alessandriana/pseuds/alessandriana
Summary: Daniel watched with worried eyes. "He's still--""He's alive." She sank back, relief momentarily interrupting her forward momentum. She took a moment to gather herself, and realized her hands were shaking. The handcuff chain rattled with the motion, and she forced it to still."Are you alright?" Daniel asked, gaze sharpening.Peggy made herself to straighten, though every bruise and strained muscle of the last few days complained about it, and threw Daniel a quick, tight smile. "I could ask the same of you."
Relationships: Peggy Carter/Daniel Sousa/Jack Thompson
Comments: 26
Kudos: 101
Collections: Hurt Comfort Exchange 2020





	voltage

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sholio](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sholio/gifts).



> Thanks to glorious_spoon for the beta! Any mistakes are my own.

"Get him over on the bed," Peggy ordered, and she and Daniel staggered across the room with Jack between them, heels dragging on the floor. The door to the safehouse clicked shut behind them. Maneuvering was awkward with her hands still cuffed tightly, but she managed.

Jack's head lolled back as they set him on the bed, eyes closed and body utterly limp, and Peggy felt her heart constrict in sudden fear as she reached out with her free hand to take his pulse-- but it was still there, a rapid flutter under her fingertips. And when she held her hand over his nose, she could feel the faint warmth of his breath against her palm.

Daniel watched with worried eyes. "He's still--"

"He's alive." She sank back, relief momentarily interrupting her forward momentum. She took a moment to gather herself, and realized her hands were shaking. The handcuff chain rattled with the motion, and she forced it to still.

"Are _you_ alright?" Daniel asked, gaze sharpening.

Peggy made herself to straighten, though every bruise and strained muscle of the last few days complained about it, and threw Daniel a quick, tight smile. "I could ask the same of you," she said, and continued before Daniel could call her on that non-answer. "Lockpicks are in the third drawer by the door with the radio. And the medical kit is in the next cabinet over. Fair warning, all the labels are in Estonian."

The safehouse was small but _very_ well-stocked; she'd spent a good hour when they'd first arrived scouting it out, and been impressed by whoever had done the work. That had been the only spot of luck they'd had since arriving three days ago.

Well, not the _only_ one, Peggy reflected grimly. They'd certainly found the Leviathan outpost they'd been looking for. And the Leviathan agent.

Daniel nodded. As he stood, moving stiffly and visibly limping, he leaned over to brush a kiss over her forehead. Peggy had to close her eyes against the burn of unshed tears.

With little better to do, she gathered up Jack's hand and gently chafed it between her own. He was freezing cold.

"I am _very_ upset with you," she said, quietly. "Self-sacrifice is hardly an attractive trait."

Jack didn't respond.

Daniel returned juggling the lock picks, the medical kit, the radio, and on a second trip, two glasses of water. Peggy drank hers, surprised to discover she was desperately thirsty, and then made quick work of the handcuffs. Her wrists were chafed and burned practically raw underneath. She remembered yanking on them, shouting as _Jack jerked in his cuffs, back arching --_

Her hands were shaking again.

Daniel began dragging a chair towards the bed, and the sound of wood scraping across tile startled Peggy out of her thoughts. _Get yourself together, Margaret Carter._

First things first. She pulled out the radio and set it to a predetermined frequency. The agent on the other end was clearly relieved to hear from them; they'd blown through multiple check ins. Peggy quickly arranged pickup, and was informed the absolute soonest they could manage it would be early the next morning. She shut it off with a grimace.

She drew the medical kit towards her and rummaged through it, looking for painkillers and bandages. Most of Jack's injuries were likely internal, but she could see the edges of burn marks peeking out from underneath the collar of his shirt, and those would need to be cleaned and bandaged soon to prevent infection.

"Help me get his shirt off?" she asked.

Daniel nodded, but when he put his hand on Jack's shoulder, Jack stirred and made an inarticulate noise of protest, bringing up his hands in a defensive position and nearly hitting Daniel in the nose. Daniel ducked out of the way. Peggy said sharply, "Jack. _Jack Thompson._ It's us."

Jack relaxed, hands coming down. "Peggy?" His voice was raspy from overuse, his eyes unfocused.

"Who else?" Peggy picked up the second glass of water. "Here, drink this."

Jack lifted his head and drank the water in thirsty gulps, then collapsed back onto the pillow, shaking with the effort. His expression was a little more alert. He took in the two of them and said, "Geez, you guys look like you're at a funeral or something."

Peggy let out a breath of air that wasn't a laugh. Daniel said, brittle and sharp, "You almost died, you asshole."

Jack brought up a hand to rub at his chest, where Peggy knew there was a dimpled scar from the gunshot, long healed. "Oh come on, like that's new?" Then he winced, dropping the hand. That simple movement had drained all color from his face. "Okay, _ow_."

 _Last_ time, Peggy hadn't had to sit there and watch while someone beat him with a shock stick with brutal efficiency. "It hardly gets better with repetition," she said, acidly. Surprise and uncertainty flickered across Jack's face. Peggy looked down, busying herself with the medical kit. "Just... lie still for a bit," she said, gentler.

"Not planning on going anywhere," Jack said.

Peggy finally located a syringe and the bottle of morphine, helpfully labeled _morfiin_. She measured out a dose-- enough to take the edge off, but not enough to knock him out-- and held it up for his inspection. "Alright?"

Jack nodded weakly, and kept his eyes closed as Peggy cleaned a section of skin above the vein, gave the dose and taped a bandage on top. Afterwards she drew his arm into her lap and kept her fingers on his pulse until she felt the muscles relax and the racing heartbeat start to slow.

Jack let out a long sigh. "'S good stuff," he said, sounding a bit loopy, and turned his hand in hers to circle the wrist lightly, not quite touching the ring of abraded flesh there. "Need to get that fixed up, Carter." He tried to lift his head off the pillow, squinting at Daniel. "Anything wrong with you?"

Daniel laughed a little. "Nothing some sleep won't fix," he answered, though Peggy could tell by the way he was sitting that he was in pain. At some point, she saw, he'd set his hand on Jack's ankle.

"Do you think you can sit up for a bit?" she asked. "I'd like to get those burns bandaged up."

Jack nodded, and got maybe six inches up before he had to abandon the effort, breathing hard. "A little help here?"

Working together, Peggy and Daniel maneuvered Jack until he was sitting upright. He looked like he might fall over at the slightest breeze, so Peggy slid in behind him at the head of the bed and let him lean back against her. He was still cold, she noted. He smelled like sweat and blood, with a lingering hint of ozone.

Jack unbuttoned his own shirt with trembling fingers, but then Daniel had to help with the undershirt. In the middle of it all, with Jack leaning half undressed against her and Daniel sliding fabric up his chest, Peggy was hit with the sudden realization of what this looked like, and was startled by a completely unexpected rush of heat.

Jack must have felt her stiffen, because he tried to turn his head and look at her, though the angle was bad. "Something wrong?"

"No," Peggy said quickly, but Daniel had already looked up, and she must not have managed to school her expression in time, because his eyebrows rose. Then he blinked and his cheeks went pink.

Well, _that_ was interesting.

"Something just happened but I don't know what it was," Jack said, plaintively.

 _Thank God for morphine,_ Peggy thought. "Don't worry about it," she said quickly. "Daniel, the antiseptic?"

"Uh, right." Daniel uncapped the bottle and fumbled for cotton balls, uncharacteristically clumsy for a moment.

The odd tension faded as Daniel set to work cleaning and bandaging. Jack's chest was a mess of burns and bruises going purple. He kept silent but couldn't hide the way he flinched at each touch, and Peggy could feel his increasingly ragged breaths where he leaned against her, the way his shoulders slumped, exhaustion weighing him down.

Daniel finished, and then held his hand out to Peggy. She stared at it uncomprehendingly, then realized he wanted to bandage her wrists as well. She held them out silently. The movement pressed her chest more firmly against Jack's back, and Peggy saw the quick sideways glance as Daniel noticed. His hands were gentle, but the antiseptic stung in the deep cuts.

She remembered reaching up and trying to wrap the chain around the Leviathan agent's neck. She remembered him laughing at her as he touched the shock stick to the chain, and the way the electric charge had arced up to her shoulders, white numbing pain that had dropped her in her tracks. And then Jack had gotten between her and him, and--

"You're lucky you didn't damage the tendons," Daniel said quietly, setting the antiseptic to the side and unwrapping a new roll of bandages. Peggy hummed a distracted agreement.

Daniel switched to cleaning out the cuts on her knuckles. _That_ at least was a better memory-- the vicious satisfaction of rolling to her feet and cracking the Leviathan agent right across the face. And then of course a moment later Daniel had broken down the outer door, and that had been the end of it. Just another mission. Hardly the first time she'd been tied up and beaten, hardly the worst she'd ever been injured.

Daniel pressed down the last piece of tape and released her hand. Peggy slid-- with some reluctance-- out from behind Jack, helping him lie back down on the pillow. He went easily, eyes fluttering shut-- asleep or unconscious, she wasn't sure. She found herself noticing the way his eyelashes lay against his cheek, the soft part of his mouth. He could be _so_ aggravating sometimes, but right now all Peggy felt was worry, and a fondness so strong it was nearly painful.

She dragged her attention away with an act of will, and turned to Daniel, gesturing at the medical kit. "My turn, I think."

"I don't need--"

Peggy nodded at his leg. "You've been wearing that for two days straight."

Daniel grimaced but shook his head. "If I take it off right now, it'll swell up and I won't be able to get it back on," he admitted.

Peggy winced. "Yes, best leave it," she said briskly. She rummaged through the kit for the bottle of aspirin, and shook out four tablets onto her palm. Daniel took two, and Peggy went over to the sink with the remainder to refill her glass. Then she took a hand towel and ran it over her face and arms. She felt a little fresher afterwards, a little more human, as if she'd washed away some of the bad memories as well. It was a trick she'd learned during the war. To really make it work she'd have fixed her hair and makeup, but she'd lost hers somewhere, and the one thing the safehouse didn't have stocked was lipstick.

A glance out the curtains showed the moon was rising over the distant trees, obscured behind a bank of clouds.

"I'm going to go check the perimeter," she said. She knew they'd left no one behind to follow them-- had taken a circuitous route to the safehouse-- but they'd been too distracted with Jack to do a good job covering their tracks, and Peggy couldn't help but worry. She hesitated. "Keep an eye on him?"

It was a stupid thing to say-- of course he would-- but Daniel nodded.

The night air was chilly and the moon provided little light. Peggy waited until her eyes adjusted, then circled the cabin to ensure there was no one lying in ambush for them. That accomplished, she set about retracing their path. She found some footprints they'd missed, and obscured them. In their place she created leading tracks towards a nearby village. She should have grabbed one of Jack's shoes, to really sell the illusion-- she was wearing combat boots, but they were too small to pass for men's. But it ought to last until morning.

She found herself thinking as she worked. She wasn't sure when her feelings for Jack had first started to morph from that initial irritation to something more complex. Belarus was when she'd _noticed_ it, and somehow by the time he'd been shot, she'd found herself attached. And he was attractive, of course-- hard _not_ to notice that. But there was Daniel, and Peggy was a one-man kind of girl. Or so she'd thought.

She swallowed, mouth gone dry, thinking again of that moment earlier. The thought floated through her head: _but if she could have_ both _..._

It was scandalous to even contemplate, but that had never stopped her before.

She shook her head. She'd done about all she could out here with her limited resources, so she turned around and headed back to the cabin, careful to walk without leaving any tracks.

She opened the cabin door to the sight of an empty bed. Something clattered loudly in the bathroom. Heart in her throat and gun in her hand-- had she missed something?-- Peggy hastened over to the open door to see--

\--Daniel pressing Jack to the wall.

The sight dovetailed so neatly into her earlier thoughts that Peggy missed all the other details of the scene for a brief moment, like Daniel's white-knuckled grip on the sink, or the trash can tipped over on the floor. Then Daniel threw her a desperate look and said, "A little help here?"

The scene rearranged itself from _Daniel pressing Jack into the wall_ to the more mundane reality of _Daniel keeping Jack from falling over_. Peggy hastily put away her gun and went over to help. Daniel transferred Jack over gratefully and then leaned against the sink, wincing.

"What the hell were you thinking, getting out of bed?" she said to Jack, who leaned almost his full weight against her as they crossed the room.

"I was _thinking_ that I needed to piss," Jack said, with a mulish scowl.

"I'm sure we could find something to use as a bed pan around here somewhere," Peggy said briskly, and Jack threw her a horrified look.

"I used enough of those in the hospital, thanks!"

Peggy leaned over and Jack slid off her shoulder onto the bed. He grimaced, but managed to stay upright.

"Now _stay_ there," she admonished, and went to help Daniel.

"Bossy, Carter!" Jack said to her back.

In the bathroom Daniel was leaning against the sink, all of his weight on his good leg. His expression lightened when she came in, a glint of embarrassed humor in his eyes. He said, "Oh, good. Come to rescue me too?"

"I thought you said you were doing alright," Peggy said.

Daniel made a wry face. "I was, up until Jack fell on me," he said. "If I try leaning over I'm going to screw it up even worse. Would you mind--"

"No, of course not." Peggy dropped to her knees and began rolling his pants leg up. Sure enough, the prosthesis had been knocked out of alignment; she slid it back into place and readjusted the straps so it sat properly. The flesh underneath was raw and painful looking. She set her hand lightly on his knee. "Only a few more hours until we can get out of here," she said.

"Trust me, I'm counting down the minutes." He reached out and cupped her face in his hand. "Now, seriously. Are you alright? You avoided the question like a champ earlier."

Peggy closed her eyes and turned her face into his hand for just a moment. "Noticed that, did you?" In the darkness behind her eyelids she could see Jack seizing in agony, electricity crackling across his chest as the agent hit him again, and again.

"Peggy..."

Peggy sighed. "I'm not alright," she admitted, opening her eyes again. Daniel's expression was sympathetic. "But I will be."

Daniel tucked a wayward curl behind her ear. "Because you have to be?"

"Yes." They both knew how that one went. She took Daniel's hand and held it between her own. "It's just hard, when it's someone--" she broke off, unsure of how she wanted to finish that sentence.

Daniel lowered his voice. "When it's someone you care about?"

His tone was perfectly even, and Peggy could easily have brushed it off, made a joke about it. Instead she took a breath and said, "Yes."

She could see the hurt flicker across Daniel's face. Quickly she squeezed his hand and said, voice getting even quieter, "Not instead of. _And_. All-- all of three of us."

"I--." Daniel looked like he had been poleaxed. He swallowed, adam's apple bobbing, and his voice cracked when he spoke. "That's an _option?"_

Peggy shrugged. "I can hardly claim to be an expert on the subject, but-- why not?"

Daniel laughed. "Peg, you--" He broke off. "I don't know what to say to that. I've never even-- well, except that one time--" He turned pink again.

Peggy resolved to ask about _that_ later. She stood and kissed him. After a moment's hesitation, he kissed her back as ardently as ever.

"Think about it," she said, once they broke apart. "It's not the kind of decision we ought to make suddenly."

"Not to mention Jack would have to agree," he said, by which she knew he was seriously considering it.

"Of course." Privately, Peggy had little doubt she and Daniel, working together, could get Jack on board.

Peggy gave Daniel an arm, and together they returned to the main room, where Jack seemed to have fallen asleep sitting up. He cracked his eyes open as they approached though, and asked, "You two lovebirds have fun in there? Sure were gone a while."

Peggy arched an eyebrow and said, "Wouldn't you like to know?"

Jack sputtered, clearly not expecting that response. "What-- I--"

Daniel sank down on the bed next to him, maybe an inch closer than propriety dictated. "Relax, she's yanking your chain," he said.

"I knew that," Jack said.

Peggy dropped onto the bed on his other side, feeling the mattress sink beneath her. Her own bruises were aching fiercely. The aspirin had taken the edge off, but what she really needed was a hot bath, and to sleep for a week.

After a moment, Jack tipped over onto her shoulder, sagging with exhaustion. Peggy wrapped an arm around him. "How are you feeling?" 

Jack grumbled something unintelligible into her shoulder. Peggy traded a fond look with Daniel. "What was that?"

Jack tilted his head just enough to free his mouth. "I said, my head hurts. Everything hurts, actually."

Peggy brought up a hand and began massaging his scalp, the fine blond locks silky against her fingers, even after three days with no shower. "Do you want more morphine?"

Jack shook his head slightly. "Prob'ly better not." She tugged gently, and Jack melted. "Just... keep doing that."

Oh dear, he _was_ still out of it. She shared a smile with Daniel. "That, I can do."

As he dozed off against her, and Daniel closed his eyes as well, Peggy settled in to wait for extraction. No, she wasn't alright, but with Jack and Daniel at her side she would be. 

**Author's Note:**

> Voltage can be defined as _the work needed to move a test charge between two points_.


End file.
